Mt Gillen rescues are an ‘arduous’ six-hour mission for emergency volunteers
EVEN a simple ankle injury while walking the unmaintained Mt Gillen track results in a major rescue mission, according to emergency service members
Centralian Advocate
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FROM dangerously searing heat, to the dark of night, hiking the unofficial walking trail on Mt Gillen in Alice Springs is a difficult enough mission without the dead weight of another person.
Even a simple ankle injury while walking the unmaintained Mt Gillen track results in a six to eight hour rescue mission which requires at least 10 volunteers.
Emergency services members have described the task of having to carry out rescue missions in the searing heat as “revolting”.
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Volunteers are now preparing for potential increase in rescues in rescues after the news the popular trail has closed, and will be officially enforced from March 1 next year.
Northern Territory Emergency Service rescue officer of the Alice Springs volunteer unit, Ian Smith, said SES had done two rescues on Mt Gillen this year.
“Every rescue that we do here we’re expecting anywhere between four to six hours for us to actually get up in and take them back down again,” Mr Smith said.
“We need at least 10 volunteers to actually assist in carrying that stretcher down, and even with that we are all exhausted by the time we get down.
“Over the last 10 years, there’s been at least a dozen rescues that we’ve done and it’s been all sorts of walkers.
“We’ve had broken ankles, twisted knees, and I believe at least one death up here as well.”
Mr Smith said the summer months were the worst time for volunteers to undertake rescue missions.
“I’ve done three or four in 40C heat and it is revolting to have to walk up there and then carry down anybody of any weight,” he said. “It gets very heavy very quickly.”
Mr Smith said the last rescue the team carried out was to retrieve a woman who had broken her ankle on the walk and while the team started at 6pm, they weren’t eating dinner until 1am at McDonald’s.
Northern Territory Emergency Service Southern Command operations officer, Keith Lewis, said people should consider other walks now Mt Gillen is closed.
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